A voice crying in the wilderness?

The Welfare Reform Bill is now in the final stages of being read and voted through the House of Lords.

Yesterday came the dire news that under Universal Credit, all but the most severely disabled children's money will be halved. Yes - disabled children's means of support snatched away to pay for greedy bankers' mistakes. It is nearly Christmas. But tragically this isn't Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" we're reading in front of cosy fires. It's the reality of living in the UK.

This comes as we're still reeling from the announcement that cancer patients undergoing chemo are to face the shambolic humiliating pantomime of the Work Capability Assessment, that is proving so deeply flawed.

In more positive news, I got excited to see M.E. had crept into the midst of top news stories today. It was about BMJ Open's research here: BMJ Open: Unidentified CFS/ME is a major cause of school absence . The item on BBC Breakfast Time this morning can be watched here: BBC Breakfast : Chronic Fatigue Syndrome 'affects one in 100 pupils'

Can the Government continue to ignore and downplay M.E. after this? The cynic in me says of course they can. And will. The believer and fighter in me says, we have to move forward in hope and thankfulness. We can still light a candle in the dark.

Not wholly surprisingly, the impression viewers were left with is that M.E. is identical to the umbrella term "chronic fatigue symdrome"; and the mistaken myth that the disease myalgic encephalomyelitis can be cured in the shake of  lamb's tail by a spot of CBT and GET before being fully diagnosed.

Meanwhile, it's taken most of my spoons to get through the simplest tasks in the lead-up to Christmas. Last week I "paced" myself through sending, emailing, addressing, personalising my usual batch of around 200 cards. That put me out for the count for days afterwards.

On Saturday, with lots of support from my mum, I managed to put up a tiny nativity set on my window ledge and decorate our small tree that sits on the floor where I don't have to stretch much. Trailed tinsel round a few surfaces. Stuck the cards along the closed piano lid. Pinned "Peace on Earth" banner to one wall. Placed a few candles on the mantelpiece. That was all I could manage, and plenty to make the room look ready for the quiet time chronic sickness demands I spend. Don't get me wrong. Jesus' birthday will be filled with joy for me and mine just the same!

What energy and health "spoons" I've got left I used to cajole my addled braincells into writing a letter and an email to try and do my little bit to challenge the worst Scroogeliness of the Government.

First was a letter to Baroness Benjamin, Lib Dem peer in the House of Lords. Well, I used to watch her on BBC's children's programme 'Play School' playing with Hamble, Jemima and Big and Little Ted. Maybe she owes us one? Seriously, she has a heart for children. I wrote to ask her to oppose the proposed one year time-limiting of ESA (Employment and Support Allowance), which will impact on children within affected families too.

The second was an email to David Cameron, the PM. The Commons, not least his partner in crime Nick Clegg,  have been giving him a rough ride this week over his veto on the EU. Yesterday I did my part to encourage him to reconsider this halving of benefits to the families of disabled children. Neither issue may affect me directly, you may say. But, "we're all in this together" is true in my mind, even if David Cameron only mouths it when it suits. In the words of the Manic Street Preachers: "If you tolerate this, your children will be next."

Now we know this to be true, how can we stay silent?

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Letter sent to Baroness Benjamin (Lady Floella Benjamin) via the House of Lords:

Dear Lady Benjamin,

Time-limited Employment and Support Allowance: Welfare Reform Bill Report Stage & Third Reading

I am writing to ask if you would consider voting against time-limited Employment and Support Allowance (ESA)? The proposal is to limit this to just one year, and can still be opposed, I believe, in the coming Welfare Reform Bill Report Stage and Third Reading.

People with serious illnesses and disabilities are in despair at the prospect of being left with no income, scarcely able to function at home most days, let alone work. While I live alone, I feel I have to ask your help for others, including young people, who will be adversely affected by losing means tested ESA after twelve months if they live with somebody who happens to be fortunate enough to have an income at that time.

I am a Methodist Minister, ex-junior school teacher, formerly the first English Methodist Mission Partner to Sucre, Bolivia. In 2007 I was forced to retire from my calling and profession by the neurological auto-immune illness Myalgic Encephalomyelitis, against which I had already been battling for over a decade since contracting giardiasis working in South America. If ESA were to be limited to one year, it would imply some miraculous cure is envisaged by the Government within that year. 
 
Like me, many disabled people are unable to work, even were jobs actually available, through no fault or “lifestyle choice” of their own. 
 
People with serious, lifelong, degenerative or fluctuating relapsing-remitting conditions will all be affected by this, children, young people and adults alike. People with Multiple Sclerosis, Myalgic Encephalomyelitis, some forms of Cancer, Parkinson’s Disease, Cardiovascular, Renal & Pulmonary Diseases, Mental Illness and many others will be left cut adrift from all hope and help, in spite of much empty rhetoric we hear to the contrary from Lord Freud and others. Meanwhile the media increasingly demonises all sick and disabled people and paints them with the same brush as benefit cheats and scroungers.

The one year time limit proposed for ESA is surely unfair and at best mystifying to right-thinking citizens? Where are the jobs or cures that make it reasonable or humane?

I know that at your Liberal Democrat conference earlier in the year, members voted overwhelmingly to oppose any such arbitrary ESA time limit. I respectfully plead with you, on behalf of all the genuinely long-term sick who are now living in dread of this, and so many other crushing blows from the Welfare Reform Bill, that you stand up for the most vulnerable members of society.

Many thanks for your understanding,
yours sincerely,
etc

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Email to David Cameron about cuts halving benefit to disabled children:


Concerning benefits for families with disabled children


Dear Prime Minister,

I am concerned about the 50% cut to benefits for many low income families with disabled children which was, to the horror of all right thinking citizens, voted through the Lords today.

Families with disabled children incur higher hidden costs, as I'm certain you know. These costs are worryingly high in wintertime. Many families with disabled children are forced to keep their heating on when mobility is impossible.

Any cuts to these household budgets already reined back to the bone are frankly inhumane. Your Government is proposing that within the Universal Credit, Disability Additions will be 50% lower than their current rate. £1400 less per year is more than these families can cope with. Why would you target unnecessary cuts at the most vulnerable disabled children?

I hope this Christmas you can find it in your heart to relent at the brink of this immoral and deadly mistake.
Yours sincerely etc